Ten robots that could kick the Terminatorâ€™s ass all the time, every time…really!

by Stephen Schleicher

The big Terminator movie hits theaters this weekend, and it prompted the Major Spoilers Crew to sit back and think about our impending doom.Â Today, we thought weâ€™d present to you, Dear Reader, the definitive list of robots and androids who could actually bring down the T-800 series.Â Â Â Itâ€™s a scientifically calculated list that can not be challenged, due to the intense nature of the work that went into making this list a reality (we said with tongue firmly in cheek).

10.Â V.I.C.I.

Sheâ€™s a robot that looks like a real 10-year old girl!Â Turn her loose on a T-800, and the human killing machine just might take its own life to get away from the small wonder. The only way the Terminator series could take down this pint-sized robot is if one of them hit the On/Off switch conveniently located on the top of her head.

9.Â R2-D2

If it can get close enough, the never ending array of gadgets and gizmos on the R2 unit can be used to dismantle the T-800 in seconds.Â Plus, R2-D2 is one cold muther-effer.Â Did you see how he just let his comrades get blown up real good in Episode One?Â The cold hearted bastard quietly went about his work, while his fellow astro-droids died around him.

8.Â Wolverine

Okay, so heâ€™s not a robot, but we figured since heâ€™s overexposed everywhere else, he might as well show up in our robot list to boost sales.

…

What?Â Weâ€™re not selling anything?*

Well damn…

8.Â Sentinels

Itâ€™s a stretch, as the T-800s arenâ€™t really mutants, so there will have to be some reprogramming going on, but once that is finished… oh wait… weâ€™d be dead by then.Â Moving on…

7.Â Yul Brenner, Gunslinger

The steely-eyed android tormented park attendees in Westworld, and while no one will come out and say the Gunslinger didnâ€™t inspire the Arnold looking non-stop killing machine, put a Terminator against a Gunslinger and youâ€™re going to see a heck of a slugfest. While the Westworld androids wonâ€™t back down from a fight, offer them a glass of water to drink, and watch the sparks fly.

6. Robocop

Half man, half machine, Alex Murphy has the inside track on what it takes to take down a human, or a machine… or a half-man/half-machine… or, as well like to call them -Manchines.Â Regardless of what you call him, give Murphy an unending supply of bullets, a torque boost, and a catchy phrase as he wipes the floor with the T-800, and humanity is saved from certain annihilation.

5.Â VINcent

Like R2, VINcent can take down any opponent providing he can get close enough to use his built in whisk blender.Â Plus he can survive going through a black hole.

Donâ€™t believe us?Â Just watch Disneyâ€™s The Black Hole, starring Ernest Borgnine, and Roddy McDowall.Â No wait.Â We like you too much to subject you to that much torture.Â Just trust us.Â VINcent rocks balls.

4. Cylons

Weâ€™re talking the Cylon Centurion and Raider models, not the tasty but fragile Grace Park version pictured above.Â While hundreds of thousands of T-800s might be marching across the charred landscape, millions of Raiders and Centurions would wipe Skynet and it robits out in an hour once their inhibitors were removed.

3.Â Bender Rodriguez

Heâ€™s a bender.Â More specifically a Bending-Unit 22.Â He bends things.Â Even things marked UN-BENDABLE.Â Heâ€™s survived molten lava, the exhaust of the Planet Express ship, gunfire, and the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.Â The Terminator doesnâ€™t stand a chance.Â Unless of course the T-800 up against Gender Bender, then everyone will have a good laugh as we die horrible deaths.

2.Â Ultron

The Terminators may seem unstoppable, as theyâ€™re always coming back in the final minutes of the film to give the audience one more scare, before succumbing to a final blast to the head, but Ultron is a robot that takes a licking and keeps on ticking.Â This is mostly due to the whim of the writer, and the fact that comic book deaths are never really final, but for this list weâ€™re going to credit an adamantium shell, and concussion blasts.Â The T-800 series can pound away all day without making a dent, while a few concussion blasts from Ultron will topple the Terminator army in a few minutes.

Personally, if humanity is going to be killed by a murderous robot, Iâ€™d rather be taken down by a sexy Wasp inspired Ultron, than some skeleton horror that is the T-800.

1.Â Optimus Prime

Stomp.Â Enough said.Â And then after the fight is over, he will turn into a bitchin’ semi so you can all drive off into the sunset together.

There you go.Â Ten robots, all more powerful than the Terminator.Â If you question our scientific method, weâ€™re now going to break it down for you:

â€œQuick, we need 10 robots that could take down the Terminator!â€

â€œT-800, or 1000 series?â€

â€œUh… 800?â€

â€œHow scientific do you want the match up to be?â€

â€œWeâ€™re a comic book and pop culture site, not Popular Mechanics, moron.â€

â€œAh, so we are going for link baiting and page views, then?â€

â€œMight as well jump on the same bandwagon as every other website this weekâ€

One case of Full Throttle later, and we have our list.

*we actually do sell advertising, and with our exponential growth, now is the time to get in on the ground floor.

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Stephen Schleicher began his career writing for the Digital Media Online community of sites, including Digital Producer and Creative Mac covering all aspects of the digital content creation industry. He then moved on to consumer technology, and began the Coolness Roundup podcast. A writing fool, Stephen has freelanced for Sci-Fi Channel's Technology Blog, and Gizmodo. Still longing for the good ol' days, Stephen launched Major Spoilers in July 2006, because he is a glutton for punishment.

Um guys you forgot a very popular android:Data from ST:TNG.He’d kick some serious butt and he’s armed with a Phaser,not some machine gun that only shoots bullets.
And if you include R2 why C-3P0?He’d talk a T-800 to death…LOL

Do not dismiss the Black Hole. That was my favorite movie of all time growing up. I liked it even more than Star Wars. Lost count of how many times I’ve seen it. Granted, it is cheesy as all hell, but I think that’s why I love it. The robots were the coolest ever and that soundtrack is awesome. It’s a way better movie than Tron, at any rate.

Your evaluation rubric is STELLAR. In my (extremely) limited time in education, I never saw anything as clearly…. AWESOME. My only question is: Does it have to be Full Throttle originals? Or can I go with the ones in the red cans? Those are my preferred F.T.

Mike: In his last-ever interview, Philip K. Dick referred to this movie as “crap”. Just had to throw that in there, even though I did see the movie as a young young kid and thought it was pretty neat. Even had the Disney record adaptation of the movie.

At the risk of being a bad guest, I’d like to submit my own Top 10 robot list:

#10: Harry Mudd’s Android Wife, Stella – Much like Maria Schrieber, it only takes Stella #1 to completely emasculate a T-800; a full complement of 500 is more than enough to save humanity from SkyNet’s robotic hordes. Admittedly, she would probably nag all the males of the species to death shortly thereafter, however.

#09: Jet Jaguar – Not only would Jet Jaguar stomp the bejeezus out of a T-800, this Ultraman wannabe would do so to its own groovy theme song and the cheers of short Japanese boys in even shorter pants.

#08: Heimi – Depending on when they’re pressed into service in the timeline, T-800s – at best – are outfitted with a birthday suite and an incredible sense of biker fashion. But not much else. Heimi, CONTROL’s android super-spy, comes with a built-in cash register, ticker-tape machine, and secret agents 86 and 99 in-tow. Verdict: Heimi and his hommies.

#07: B-9, Class M-3 General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot – any artificial life-form that could survive seasons 2 and 3 of “Lost in Space” is more than a match for a T-800.

#06: Robby the Robot – While it’s true that the B-9, Class M-3 General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot totally kicked Robby’s ass in the classic “Lost in Space” episode “War of the Robots,” it’s also true that Robby gets all the hot chicks (http://posterwire.com/wp-content/images/forbidden_planet.jpg). Despite being endowed with Arnold Schwartzennegger’s physique, accent, and (presumably) voracious appetite for sex, with nearly 10 hours of screen time I’ve never seen a T-800 get laid!

#05: Robot Chicken – Not just a cyborg, Robot Chicken is also some form of undead *and* an upcoming expansion pack for the video game SPORE. There’s no way for SkyNet’s cybernetic minions to deal with undead, robotic, user-generated fowl!

#04: Twiki – Much like Heimi, Twiki comes with his own posse of ass-kicking, time-displaced, frequently bare-chested hirsuite actors and hot, leggy, buxom space-babes in brass bras. And they’re all packin’!

#03: Any Scooby-Doo Monster – provided we’re talking the original couple of runs of the animated series, I’d put any one of Scooby’s automotons up against a T-800. Sure a T-800 can pass for California’s governor, but look at the overhead involved in fielding one of these things. Scooby’s enemies are just as artificial, just as convincing, and usually made from cheese cloth, wood, and duct tape. Quantity beats quality this time around.

#02: Lore – Data’s evil twin, Lore, has a penchant for bending cyborgs to his will. Considering how easy it is for a T-800 to shed its organic components (just give one a bowie knife and a frightened woman of color for an audience and watch the skin fly!), Lore would commandeer the T-800s and make SkyNet his bitch in very short order.

#01: Android Capt. Kirk – let’s face it, no one kills computers and robots quite as well as James Tiberius Kirk-Prime, nee, James T. Kirk. And who better to be the perfect robot killing machine than his perfect robot copy. Plus, “Androids don’t eat Ms. Chapel.” Which is kind of odd when you think about it, considering how much play the good captain got from chicks with green hair and such over the years…

@Matthew: Thank you! The Black Hole rules. ‘Nuff said. You guys you should do a Black Hole podcast.

@Ricco. I do not dislike Tron. It too is an enjoyable movie. I just think it is a tad overrated. It has some stuff in it just as cheesy and silly as the Black Hole, and is not really any better of a movie, but it has a better reputation because of its early CG stuff like the lightcycles and the video arcade game based on it.

So far I like the additions of Johnny 5 and definitely a team-up of Tom Servo and Crow, they could verbally rip it to shreds. For the obligitory Star Wars suggestion, I’d propose IG-88 as one ass-kicking robot who really only stood around for like 12 seconds. I’d be willing to put money on a Roomba to take down a T-800, or at least clean a path on the floor for it to walk. I do think that one of the big robots of history has been sorely neglected on your list though, Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still, and if he was cruising around in K.I.T.T. he’d be damn near unstoppable. Daleks may be more Cyborg than straight robot, so I can forgive that one, but what about AstroBoy? Do you think that a big Austrian Terminator has anything on a boy robot with an Ass Cannon?

I have to add a few more to my list. Bishop from the Aliens movies, who was a pretty bad ass character. The esteemed Evil Bill and Evil Ted robots were pretty awesome as well, killing real Bill and Ted and calling them Fags and spitting on their bodies all during a PG movie is pretty sweet, plus they got to kill Keanu Reeves so I’m on board. And after this next one, all future robot lists can be cancelled, Marvin from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He’d probably just make the Terminators so depressed that they’d all just power down on their own.

Tommy Lee Jones from Small Soldiers… maybe just Tommy Lee Jones, I’m not too sure about that guy.